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Comment by okcando | Hacker News Reader

I've been trying to avoid groceries that come with single-use plastic and it's tough. Grapes and cherry tomatoes come in plastic bags or cartons, even at salt-of-the-earth type places. Meat or cheese from the deli gets a zip lock. There's no way to use the olive bar without grabbing a plastic carton, in various sizes.

I wouldn't have even suspected the tea bags themselves. I assume some of them are still made with natural fibers but how would you know?

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The truth is single-use plastics are very useful in certain applications. Sanitation and reducing food waste likely outweigh the cost. I do think it's great we're being more thoughtful in our consumption and thinking more about where stuff goes when we throw it "away."

I do think you can address some of your issues assuming your grocer is a bit accommodating and you don't mind the perception of being a bit odd. Farmer's Markets rarely package things like grapes and cherry tomatoes. I got some reusable produce bags that have a tare weight written on them [1] (I don't usually bother having them tare it). I just stuff the produce bags into one of my grocery bags.

There are a bunch of "zero-waste blogs." I can't seem to find it, but I remember watching one video bio where she went grocery shopping. She had them put cuts of meat into jars and brought her own containers for everything. The only "waste" was the paper sticker they put on her jar. She did say it was a bit odd at first and she had built a relationship with the grocer, but I'm pretty sure it was just a local Whole Foods.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FT4ZCKZ/

The "bags" that they're alluding to are "Tea Forté" - but they're carefully avoiding naming names. It's pretty easy to tell that the material is plastic.

It's loose tea in a finely perforated plastic pyramid with a paper leaf on top as a handle. They're marketed to people willing to pay extra for the appearance of the bag.

At the higher-end grocery stores near me (Whole Foods, Nugget, etc), you can bring your own container and tare it before filling. Maybe you can see if your local grocery store can do this at the deli/olive bar?

I've been doing this a while. At the big stores, cashiers are always happy to do it, it's just a mild inconvenience because they rarely know how to tare on their machines–they always have to call over a manager and figure it out together. I figure if enough people do it, they'll get used to it, but I don't hold hope for that, judging by the stares we get from everyone waiting in line behind us. It feels like the average person feels more averse to what we're trying to accomplish.

Our local co-op is a lot more streamlined for this, they even do periodical sales for people who bring reusable containers.

Our next goal is to bring our own containers when we eat out, in case we don't finish the food and want to bring the rest home. Often times we purposely order more than we can finish so we get a greater variety of things to share and a whole extra meal the next day.

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